By Susie Violet Ward · Forbes · 24 January 2024
In January 2024, shortly after US spot bitcoin ETFs were approved, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF alone had a market cap of about $24.8 billion, according to Stock Analysis, compared with roughly $11 billion held across silver ETFs, according to etfdb.com. Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, described the approval of the first US spot bitcoin ETF as a once-in-a-decade event.
The article notes that GBTC was facing heavy selling at the time, with outflows of more than $2 billion within five trading days, including reported sales of about $1 billion of shares by FTX, while funds from BlackRock and Fidelity saw substantial inflows. It also lists other bitcoin funds, such as the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF at around $1.65 billion, and compares them with the iShares Silver Trust’s net assets of about $10 billion as of January 2023.